NAME: Rei Alyssa Murray
CREATIVE FIELD: Poet / Author
WEBSITE: rei-writes.com
POET BIO:
Rei Alyssa Murray is a poet located in the forests of western Pennsylvania. She has written three dark poetry collections, Cries to Kill the Corpse Flower, Lost Letters to a Lover’s Carcass, and Through a Gauntlet, Phantom Haunted, all of which have been collected and published in the omnibus In All the Ways, A Drowning. Her work has been nominated for an Elgin Award and two Wonderland Book Awards. Cries to Kill the Corpse Flower was short-listed for a 2020 Bram Stoker Award, and poems from Lost Letters to a Lover’s Carcass appeared in Ellen Datlow’s Best Of lists.
Her poetry has appeared in Space & Time Magazine and the HWA Poetry Showcase, and she has several pieces of short fiction appearing in various anthologies. She is currently working on a fourth poetry collection inspired by gender identity, the struggles of the LGBTQ+ community and her individual experiences with them, the horrors of current events, and the general human experience of intense emotions.
When she is not writing, she enjoys spending time with her children, coding and playing hacking challenges, staying up late and drinking hot chocolate, petting her cat, and riding her ebike on trails.
INTERVIEW
What got you into horror to begin with – what’s your core Horror memory?
I’ve always been interested in dark and spooky things for as long as I can remember. But it’s probably fair to say that my core Horror memory is when I, probably around ten years old, popped the original Silent Hill disc into my cousin’s PlayStation 1, not knowing what it was. That beginning sequence where the grey children swarm and kill Harry scared the living shit out of me and left me with that deep fascination that fear so often leaves people like us. I wanted more and to test the limits of my fear.
Do you have a favourite horror subgenre (or more than one) and if so, what is it? What/Who are your favourite books/films/podcasts/artists/creatives working in that subgenre?
I like ambiguous psychological horror a lot. Probably my favorite horror book I’ve ever read is Paul Tremblay’s A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS.
I was living alone in an apartment in Pittsburgh, and I hadn’t been sleeping anyway because I was going through a pretty rough time in my life as far as anxiety goes. That book kept me so engaged that I devoured it in a single night, giving me some much-needed relief, and I’m pretty sure I went back for seconds not long after.
I am also obviously a huge fan of horror poetry, and I think Sara Tantlinger nails it every single time. From LOVE FOR SLAUGHTER to CRADLELAND OF PARASITES, she’s an incredible poet.
In that same vein, I really loved Avra Margariti’s THE SAINT OF WITCHES.
What is the horror project of your heart – perhaps something you’ve already got out there, something you’re working on now, or something you’d like to do?
Well, IN ALL THE WAYS, A DROWNING is near and dear to me. I wrote that as I went through a journey of figuring myself out emotionally, and you can see that in the narrative of the three loosely-connected poetry collections in that little omnibus.
Otherwise, I’ve been playing with a novel for like nine years. The title character is near to my heart, and I hope one day I can truly bring her to life in a manuscript that I feel is worthy of sharing.
Which 5 horror books can you not stop thinking about, or have influenced you most in some way? (If not books, you can pick 5 films, 5 pieces of art, 5 songs… or mix & match!)
The five pieces of horror media that have influenced me the most would have to be:
The original Silent Hill 2 video game,
the original Jacob’s Ladder film,
Edgar Allan Poe’s THE TELL-TALE HEART,
H.P. Lovecraft’s AT THE MOUNTAIN OF MADNESS,
and AFI’s discography from BLACK SAILS IN THE SUNSET to BURIALS.
If you had to describe the tones and themes of your own work in terms of movies, books, songs, or art, what would you choose and why?
I once stumbled across this really obscure drone album by an artist called The Quietus titled HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY, and I think that about sums it up.
Introduce us to something you’ve created, and pitch it to the audience!
IN ALL THE WAYS, A DROWNING is a collection of over 100 poems that follow a loose narrative of a character that goes through a journey of co-dependence and limerence, misplacing their emotional anguish and directing anger at the wrong targets, as well as thinking they’ve discovered a love to heal them.
The character discovers that their issue came from a bad example of partnership set by their parents during their formative years and learns that healing comes from a place deep within that holds self-forgiveness and self-love.